Cold War

The Cold War was a period from 1945 to 1991 that saw the world divided into two factions: the United States and NATO-led Western Bloc and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact-led Eastern Bloc. The division of the world followed the end of World War II, with the Soviets imposing communism in areas that they had occupied; the Western Allies installed democratic governments in liberated countries that were capitalist.

Prelude
During the last stages of World War II, Europe was a battleground between the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, seeing millions of deaths. Cities were destroyed and the infrastructure of society badly damaged, and Europe was gradually liberated from Nazi Germany's forces as the Soviet Union's Red Army pushed on Berlin through Eastern Europe and the combined forces of the United States, United Kingdom, France, and the Western Allies liberated countries in Western Europe from German occupation. At the war in Europe's end in May 1945, Europe was divided in half at the Elbe River, where Soviet and American forces met. It seemed that the worst was over, with fascism being destroyed and Europe being liberated from Adolf Hitler's rule. However, the Soviets refused to liberate the countries that they had occupied, instead installing communist puppet governments led by powerful dictators. The Western Allies restored democracy to the countries that they had liberated, and those governments had free market economies that promoted capitalism. Europe was now divided between the capitalist and pro-US Western Bloc and the pro-USSR Eastern Bloc, with an Iron Curtain dividing Europe from Stettin in the Baltic Sea to Trieste in the Adriatic Sea, with Germany being divided into a capitalist West Germany and a communist East Germany and with the capital being divided into West Berlin and East Berlin. Soviet troops occupied the communist countries, while US, British, and French troops were stationed in West Germany. Some people believed that the only solution to the standoff would be "Operation Unthinkable", the Allied attack against the communist forces in Eastern Europe. However, this war would not go hot in open conflict, but would be a "cold war" without direct fighting.

Berlin Blockade
On 24 June 1948, the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin made a daring move when he decided to encircle and blockade West Berlin. Stalin's goal was to besiege the Allied forces in the city and force them to withdraw in order to prevent a war; it was also meant to pressure the Allies into withdrawing the new Deutschmark currency from West Germany so that the Soviets could keep Germay in poverty as a punishment for World War II. US President Harry Truman decided to react to this issue by beginning the "Berlin Airlift", in which 8,893 tons of fuel and food were dropped to civilians in West Berlin to help them survive the blockade. Although this action was risky, with war being a possible reaction by the Soviets, Truman was able to force the Soviets into backing down, and on 12 May 1949 Stalin decided to end the blockade to prevent a war from breaking out.

The Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine
Truman's assistance of West Berlin would be just one example of his efforts to rebuild Europe after the disaster of World War II. In the following years, Truman would implement the Marshall Plan to give economic assistance to all countries affected by the war, and he would also follow his own "Truman Doctrine", providing military assistance to any countries endangered by the spread of communism. The first example of a country in need of assistance was Greece: the Greek Civil War broke out between the Kingdom of Greece and communist rebels of the Provisional Democratic Government. The United States helped in funding the Greek Army, and the USA gave its support to the pro-West government against the pro-Yugoslavia rebels. The civil war would end in 1949 in a victory for the government, and Greece would remain a US ally.

Another example would be the Republic of China; immediately after the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War continued from the 1920s as the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong fought against Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government. The United States gave equipment and training to the KMT forces, but the communists fought a successful war against Chiang Kai-shek's government, which lacked skilled generals. The civil war would end in 1949 when the communists entered Beijing, forcing the Kuomintang nationalists to flee to the island of Taiwan, where they set up a government-in-exile at Taipei. The newly-established People's Republic of China would become a powerful East Asian communist regime, and the United States would have to deal with both the USSR and China as they attempted to influence other revolutionary struggles in Asia.

Formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact
On 4 April 1949, the Western Bloc nations united as a military alliance called the "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" (NATO) in order to counter the growing influence of the Soviets and their communist allies. The United States would invest in alliances with Turkey and Israel in the Middle East to check the Soviets in the region, while the Soviets would later make alliances with the Arab countries in the region such as Egypt and Syria, enemies of Israel and therefore the United States by proxy. Also in 1949, the Soviets formed Comecon (the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), followed by the Warsaw Pact on 14 May 1955. The formation of these alliances made the Cold War as much a struggle between East and West as it was between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. NATO, however, did not include all Western Bloc countries; it was instead composed mostly of the European and North American allies of the United States - similarly, the Warsaw Pact was mostly USSR-aligned countries in Europe.

Korean War
Although the Cold War is often labelled as a bloodless standoff between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc, the Korean War saw the Americans and Chinese fight in a bloody war with each other.